(800) 453-1843 | (262) 345-1245

Complete Story

NACHA Publishes ISO 20022 Mapping Guide

Herndon, Va., April 20, 2015 - NACHA — The Electronic Payments Association® announced today that it has published an ISO 20022 Mapping Guide to assist financial institutions in translating ISO 20022 payment instructions for their corporate customers into ACH payments.

ISO 20022 is the standard for financial service messaging used to describe business processes, such as payments, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an international standard-setting body. Globally, some countries and multinational companies already have implemented ISO 20022 payment functionality.

The ACH Network currently supports usage of ISO 20022 payment remittance messages. To help support U.S. banks with their global customers that need to execute U.S. ACH payments, NACHA developed instructions outlining how to map the ISO 20022 payment files to ACH transactions. The ISO 20022 Mapping Guide standardizes the practice of mapping ISO 20022 formatted payment messages to corresponding NACHA file formats.

“NACHA’s ISO 20022 strategy focuses on the current needs of ACH users while planning for the future of the ACH Network,” said George Throckmorton, Managing Director of Network Development for NACHA. “The ISO 20022 Mapping Guide is an important step in helping to support ISO 20022 adoption in the United States.”

NACHA – in collaboration with financial institutions, corporations and industry subject matter experts – developed the data mapping tool as a first step to defining pathways for greater support of ISO 20022 in the U.S. NACHA plans to extend its mapping guidance to include additional industry needs such as debits, pre-notes, and consumer payments.

“With efforts such as the ISO 20222 Mapping Guide, NACHA is demonstrating clear leadership in the U.S. to promote and encourage the adoption of ISO 20222,” said Nasreen Quibria of Qinsights, who worked with NACHA to develop the mapping guide and a companion tool that provides standardized guidance for translating payment messages to corresponding ACH Network B2B credit transactions.

“The data mapping guide supports the growing global needs of the business community while helping to align the U.S. with the global payments infrastructure,” Quibria said.

NACHA will discuss the Mapping Guide and provide further case study information at the PAYMENTS 2015 conference that is being held now through April 22 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The “ACH Network Roadmap for ISO 20022” session will be held today at 10 a.m. To learn more about PAYMENTS 2015, please visit payments.nacha.org.

NACHA will host a webinar, “How to Execute ISO 20022 Payment Initiation via the ACH Network” on May 28 to provide a technical overview of the Mapping Guide. For more information about the webinar, visit the webinar page on the NACHA website

Additionally, NACHA’s Payments Innovation Alliance is engaging in projects exploring ISO 20022. The Alliance is a single membership program that spans across all payment areas, and creates a new inclusive voice for the payments industry and the ACH Network. To learn more about The Alliance and its work around ISO 20022, visit alliance.nacha.org.